by Lito Dar

The Regional Development Council (RDC) Third Autonomy Act Drafting Committee (TAADC) chaired by city mayor Mauricio Domogan, is now bent on overseeing the drafting of a third Autonomy law, targeted to be finished by end of May.

According to RDC co-chairman, Dr. Virgilio Bautista, the drafting committee is working on the autonomy law and that they have already received four complete draft proposals from Ifugao and Kalinga, from Baguio City, and from a sectionalized representation.

Bautista also affirmed that the technical working group (TWG), which is assisting the TAADC, is now also set to fast track the drafting by starting to meet three times a week to ensure that they will meet their timetable to have the final draft ready for consultation by the end of May.

“I believe that the work now will be very fast as it is also a big help that the provinces have already given us their complete drafts, which was patterned from the second autonomy bill. The TWG is now trying to reconcile all of those submitted to TAADC and hopefully we can have the final draft by the end of May.”
Bautista said the draft will be presented to the Cordillera congressmen and governors for consultation if they still have ideas or other concerns that they want to include in the said autonomy law.

He also stressed the RDC's optimism on the region’s third autonomy drive since there are better information dissemination drives this time. “All of the provinces already have their consultations and the media people is also of big help as even those in the provinces are all active, they even have radio programs now in their own dialect,” Bautista said. (JDP/JBS-PIA CAR)